When manufacturing various different assemblies for a vehicle, it is often very important to precisely align a first member relative to a second member to align stacked assemblies or to achieve small, uniform gaps for function or appearance. The various different vehicular assemblies in which a first member must be precisely aligned with a second member may include, but are not limited to, multiple plates of a battery pack for an electric vehicle, multiple plates of a fuel cell pack for a hydrogen fuel cell, one or more components of a dashboard assembly relative to each other or a support structure, a body panel relative to the support structure, or a trim panel relative to the body panel.
The different members may be aligned with a datum reference structure, in which one or more surfaces of the different members are pressed against the datum reference structure to remove the various degrees of movement between the different members. Alternatively, locating features may be machined into or otherwise attached to the different members. However, in order to account for the part variations between the locating features, a certain amount of clearance must be designed into the locating features, which decreases the precision of the alignment.